Chain conveyer for forming and removing piles of coal



' (No Model.)

2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

r v J. M. DODGE. QNAIN GONVEYER FOR FORMING AND REMOVING PILES 0F GOAL. No 408,958.:

Patented Aug. 13, 1889.

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ATTEST INVENTOR.

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JAMES M. DODGE, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR TO THE DODGE COAL STORAGE COMPANY, OF NAUGATUCK, CONNECTICUT.

CHAIN CONVEYER FOR FORMING AND REMOVING PILES OF COAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 408,958, dated August 13, 1889.

Application filed December 28, 1887. Sen'al No. 259,254. (No model.)

' Coal and other Material; and I do hereby deelare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this application.

My present invention relates to means for both piling up and removing a pile of coal, culm, or other material adapted to be handled or operated upon by the flights of a suspended chain conveyer. i V

In other contrivances or apparatuses lately devised and put into practical operation by me a simple endless conveyer-chain provided with flights and arranged in an oblique position is employed in some cases to form a pile of coal or other material (of considerable magnitude) by simply scraping the material or (so to speak) flowing it on itself from a given point of supply at the surface of the ground (or near it) upwardly and onwardly, and in other cases to remove the contents of a pile or heap of material by scraping it along on itself backward (by a reverse movement of such chain conveyer) to the original source or point of supply, from which it is translated or carried off for transportation by any desired means.

By my present invention I propose to provide means by which, with the use of a similar chain conveyer to that used heretofore (as just above explained) to form a pile or heap, and some suitable means for conveying the material away from the last-formed end of the pile, the material may be both piled up and removed from the pile with the said chainconveyer running always in the same direction.

To this main end and object my invention may be said to consist, essentially, in the combination, with a simple endless chain or cable provided with flights and having one end located at the point of supply of the material to be piled (and subsequently removed) and the other end vertically adjustable, of

- provement.

any suitable conveyer device arranged at a locality about coincident with that at which said chain conveyer is designed to form that portion of the pile farthest from the point of supply of the material, whereby I am enabled to pile up the coal in the manner heretofore practiced by me and to subsequently remove the pile by scraping the material farther along and into the receiving portion of the conveyer for its removal while lowering the adjustable end of the said endless chain providedwith flights, all as will be hereinafter more fully explained.

' To-enable others skilled in the art to which my invention relates to understand and practice the same, I will now proceed to more fully describe it, referring by letters to the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification, and in which I have shown my said invention carried into eifect by that form of apparatus whichI have so far used practically with satisfactory results, though various modifications may of course be made in the apparatus without departing from the novel principle peculiar to mypresent invention.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a side elevation of a coal-pile forming and removing contrivance made according to my present im- Fig. 2 is a top view of the same; and Fig. 3 is an end view of the same, looking from a point to the left of Fig. 2. Figs. 4 and 5 are respectively a partial side view and a partial top view, drawn on an enlarged scale, and better showing the detail construction of certain parts of the contrivance.

In the several figures the same part will be found designated by the same letter of reference.

A represents an ordinary sprocket-wheel,

located, by preference merely, near the base of the trestle-work B of an ordinary elevated railroad-track b, and supposed to have its shaft a rotated in the proper direction by some suitable motor. (Not shown in the drawings.) Engaging with said sprocket-wheel A, and running thence (obliquely upward, as shown) to a suspended sprocketwheel D, with which it also engages, is an endless conveyer-chain C, which is provided with flights c, in the well-known manner, and which is driven by the drive-wheel A in the direction indicated by the arrow at Fig. 1.

The sprocket-wheel D at the upper portion of the conveyor-chain C has its shaft properly mounted in one end of a take-up frame, which frame is provided with a wheel for operating it, and is suspended from the top of the pole E in such manner that it may be raised and lowered, all as will be presently more fully explained.

The pole E, as shown, is held in an erect position by means of suitable guy ropes or stays 6, extending downwardly in the proper directions from the top of said pole to suitable anchorages at the ground-surface.

In the general operation of so much of the contrivance as I have thus far herein described, fer the purpose of forming a pile or heap of coal such as represented in outline at N by the broken lines, the material is taken as fast as supplied at thelocality of the wheel A (or where the lower end of the conveyerchain (1 is located) by the flights c, traveling in the direction indicated at Fig. 1, and is carried along and heaped up or piled until the maximum heap or pile desired is formed, as seen at N. Whenever it may be desired to remove the contents of this pile or heap N for transportation, (in cars or otherwise) the chain conveyer O is again set running in the same direction of travel which it had when piling up the material, and at the same timev the upper end of the double run of chain is gradually lowered, (either continuously or intermittingly,) so as to cause the flights c of the conveyer to scrape or carry along the material on the top of the pile on itself in the direction indicated by the dotted arrow 1 at Fig.1, until by gravity it tumbles down in the direction indicated by the dotted arrow 2 at said figure, until when the chain conveyer 0 shall have been lowered down to the horizontal position shown by the dotted lines at Fig. 1 a large portion of the pile or heap will have been scraped along or carried off (by the action of the flights a) to the point or 10- cality indicated at Fig. 2 by the numeral At this point may be placed or located the receiving portion of the trough of an ordi nary trough-conveyer device, or the receiver of any other suitable contrivanee for carrying off the coal or other material as fast as it may be fed to said point by the above-described action of the flights of the lowered conveyerchain 0. For the purpose of thus removing the material as fast as brought to the point by the flights c, I have shown a conveyer machine or contrivance composed of a horizontal and an obliquely-ascending trough (L and K) provided with a chain convcyer F, traveling around sprocket-wheels II, I, and J, suitably mounted, the flights f of which carry the material along in the horizontal trough I and thence up through the trough K and a chute g, mounted in the upper portion of a framework M, into which chute the material earried up the trough K is discharged, and from which chute it is discharged by gravity into cars (not shown) which run on a surface railroad, (represented at 5,) and by which the material may be transported to any desired destination.

The means by which the upper end of the double run of conveyor-chain may be gradually lowered, as above stated, will be best understood from the drawings by special reference to Figs. 4 and 5 in connection with the following explanation: As will be seen, the shaft (1 of the sprocket-wheel D is mounted in journal-boxes e, which are attached to the lower ends of the two screw rods or shafts m of the take-up frame 122, said rods m passing through threaded holes in the frame m. The upper ends of said rods m are provided with sprocket-wheels e", that are banded or geared together by a chain belt f, and one of said rods m is provided also with a wheel a, by the turning of which said screw-rod. is retated, and with it (through the media of the chain-wheels e and chain belt 1'') the other screw-rod, so that whenever the wheel a may be turned in one or another direction the two screw-rods m will be caused to traverse endwise in the frame m, and the shaft (1, with its sprocket-Wheel D, to be taken up or let out in a well-known manner, to either tighten or slacken the conveyer-chain. The frame on is made, as shown, to pull against the pole E, and it is suspended bodily by one end of a cable or rope I)", which passes upwardly (from its point of attachment to said frame) over a pulley-block or sheave-block a, and thence down to some suitable means of securement to the pole E, near the base of the latter, the said sheave-block a, being flexibly secured to the upper end of the pole E. After the removal by these means of that portion of the pile N carried forward, as just explained, to the locality 3 by the action of the flights c, the remaining portions of the original pile may be nearly all removed by repeated like act-ions of the conveyer C, after having, however, first moved the pole E sidewise first in one and then the other direction, (as indicated by the half-arrows 4 and 5 at Fig. 3,) and by moving or adjusting the troughconveyer contrivance shown (or any other device that may be used to carry off the material fed to it by such actions of the conveyer C) in a proper manner.

It will be seen that by my present inven tion I am enabled to easily and very economically first make heaps or piles of coal and other material of vast size, and then remove IIO the same in a direction continuous of that in I which the material was carried along in forming such piles. This result or effect is often one of great importance and advantage in handling large quantities of coal and other material, since it frequently happens that it is very desirable to remote the contents of the pile from a point or locality about opposite to that at which the material was supplied to make the pile, in order, for instance, that a new pile may be made in the place of that removed, with material supplied at the same point at which that which composed the former pile was supplied.

Of course, as is usual in many apparatuses designed to perform prodigious operations under varying conditions as to location, 820.,

the detail arrangementof the parts composing an entire contrivance substantially such as shown may frequently have to be varied some from what I have exhibited in the drawings.

WVhat I claim as of my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

In an apparatus or contrivance designed for the double purpose of forming or making and also removing a storage-pile of coal or other like material,'the combination, with the obliquely arranged endless chain or cable provided with flights c, driven in only one direction of travel and vertically adjustable at its highermost portion only, the chain-wheels over which said chain is banded and by means of one of which it is driven, some suitable means for supporting the lower one of said chain-Wheels in proximity to a point to which the material to be built up into a storage-heap is to be supplied and for supporting the other one at a much higher elevation, and means for imparting power to one of said chain-wheels, of a transversely-arranged ordinary trough conveyer located in a plane about coincident with that in which may lie the base of the pile of material to be removed, and in such relationship to the perimeter of the base of the pile and to the said obliquelyarranged, adjustable, and flighted chain or cable as to receive and carry off the material of the accumulated pile as fast as fed to it by the action of the said obliquelyarranged flighted chain or cable, the said combination being and operating in substantially the manner hereinbefore set forth.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 20th day of December, 1887.

JAMES M. DODGE. In presence of JOHN DUNN, STAUNTON B. A. PEoK. 

